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Proto-Draconic
Basics Proto-Draconic, abbreviated PD, is the language spoken by the dragon races before they evolved fully to their current level of intellect and capacity. While primitive in its syntax, its grammar is highly complex, and its vocabulary is rich with nuance. Syntax PD word order is completely moot, as the language is so heavily declined, inflected, and conjugated that there is no obscurity in meaning, or even emphasis, in any given sentence. Alphabet Very few written documents survive from the Proto-Draconic era, so the alphabet has been largely lost to time (except see: The Den of the Ancients), and as a result, all known transcriptions of Proto-Draconic legends have been transliterated into either the Latin or the Draconic alphabets. Grammar Declension PD is very heavily declined, though it possesses very few declensions in total--to whit, three, each of which corresponds to a natural gender. That being said, it has 16 cases, each with a unique function, and each of which can be inflected in one of three ways. There are also four numbers. Cases *Nominative: The nominative case is used prinicipally for agents of a sentence, though it can also be used in the predicate with verbs of equality or correspondance. *Genitive: The genitive case is used principally for showing possession of a patient, though it can show, more generally, a point of origin that indicates identity. *Dative: The dative case is used principally for showing the actions done to or for a patient. *Accusative: The accusative case is used principally for showing the actions done on a patient. *Commitative: The commitative case is used principally for actions done accompanied by a patient. *Instrumental: The instrumental case is used principally for showing the instrument of an action by an agent upon a patient. *Ablative: The ablative case is used principally for showing motion away from a patient. *Illative: The illative case is usedc principally for showing motion into a patient. *Inessive: The inessive case is used principally for showing location within a patient. *Adessive: The adessive case is used principally for showing location near a patient. *Subessive: The subessive case is used principally for showing location below a patient. *Causal: The causal case is used principally for showing the motive of actions. *Comparative: The comparative case is used principally for showing similarity or likeness of two or more things. *Temporal: The temporal case is used principally for indicating a specific time. *Durative: The durative case is used principally to show start and end points for the duration of an event or action. *Partitive: The partitive case is used principally to refer to a specific number, usually out of the entire sum of the objects being counted. Genders PD has natural gender; all animate beings that are male are assigned the masculine gender, all animate beings that are female are assigned the feminine gender, and all inanimate objects or genderless animate beings are assigned the neuter gender. PD has no concept of hermaphroditism, nor of distinction between natural and psychological gender, however, as a matriarchal society, all collections of objects defer to gender in the following order: if all members are neuter, the noun declines in the neuter, but the addition of one male to a neuter group forces declension in the masculine, and the addition of one female to a neuter or masculine group forces declension in the feminine. Inflexions There are three principal inflexions in PD: netural, negation, diminutive, and emphasis. Neutral A netural inflexion on a noun indicates that it should be interpreted as said or written, with no implicit negation of particular emphasis. Negation A negative infix is added between the root of any noun and its declension suffix to indicate that the opposite of the declension is actually indicated. The following changes can then be observed: *Negative Temporal: An eternal truth or concept *Negative Comparative: An indication of dissimilarity or unlikeness *Negative Subessive: Location above a patient *Negative Adessive: Location far from a patient *Negative Inessive: Location ouside of a patient *Negative Illative: Movement out of a patient *Negative Ablative: Movement towards a patient *Negative Instrumental: An indication of a lack of a patient as an instrument *Negative Commitive: An indication of a lack of a patient as an accessory *Negative Dative: An indiation that an action was not performed for or to a patient *Negative Accusative: An indication that an action was not performed on a patient *Negative Genitive: An indication that a patient is not possessed by some agent Diminutive A diminutive suffix is added to the end of any noun which is markedly small or young. It is also used as a mark of endearment. Emphasis An emphatic suffix is added to the end of any noun which demands special attention of its audience. Numbers PD has four numbers: singular, dual, plural, and universal. The singular number is obviously used for subjects that are unary in nature, but the others require further explication. Dual Proto-Draconic society being fostered heavily around pairs of dragons mating and/or befriending each other for life, the dual number is used to refer to pairs of objects, specifically those which are closely related in some way. So, while life mates would be referred to using the dual number, an arbitrary group of two trees would be declined in the plural. Plural With the exception of dual- and universal-specific situations, any instance where two or more of a given thing are being referred to with a single noun is declined in the plural. Universal Any instance where the entire corpus of that which is being referred to can be said to share the characteristic or action discussed will decline in the universal, as an indicator that it is common to all of that particular class. Conjugation PD has three tenses, three aspects, and eight moods. The persons for verbs are as with nouns--that is to say, fourfold. However, it only has one conjugation; all verbs will conjugate identically if they share the same tense, aspect, mood, and number. Tenses There are three tenses in PD: past, present, and future, each of which corresponds to a different time of existence. The past tense indicates that an action happened in time preceding the writing or speech in question, the present tense indicates an action concurrent with the writing or speaking in question, and the future tense indicates an action that is yet to take place. Aspects The three aspects in PD are simple, perfect, and progressive. The simple aspect is used when there is nothing further to imply about a verb other than its time and mood, but the perfect indicates a state of completion, and the progressive indicates a state of incompleteness. Mood The eight moods of PD are used as follows: *Indicative: Factual statements and issues of positive belief *Dubitive: Imaginary, doubtful, or fictitious statements and issues of negative belief *Conditional: Used to show dependance of the verb clause on something else *Optative: Hopes and wishes *Jussive: Pleading, beseeching, and imploring *Tentative: Used only for statements of unknown truth value but which are probable *Imperative: Commands *Interrogative: Questions, either in conjuction with a question word, or used to turn a statement into a question Examples Declension Masculine: Ghrax- (dragon) Feminine: Ghrax- (dragon) Neuter: Migh- (food) UNDER CONSTRUCTION BY AUTHOR. PLEASE DO NOT EDIT. Category:Flavor Category:Language